Taco Bell has announced a taco with a fried chicken shell, dubbed “The Naked Chicken Chalupa.”

As the announcement trickled through however it is people get their news these days – Twitter, Facebook, a sentient vibrator that is constantly on the lookout for food to incorporate in the bedroom – the reactions were predictably divided. Those who were still operating on metabolisms that could absorb a combination of fried proteins smeared with creamy fat were enthused. Enthralled, even.

Meanwhile, those of us whose guts expand at the mere thought of a pizza slice were horrified. “How irresponsible,” we thought. “How shameless. How dickish of them to come up with yet another delicious-sounding idea that I can only shamefully eat in my car after leaving the office at 7 pm and crying profusely at my lack of self control?”

The news comes on the heels of a high-risk journalistic investigation from USA Today,revealing that Taco Bell was low-key “the healthier option among the fast food giants,” due to increased vegetarian and high-protein menu options. Presumably, a Taco Bell executive read this article, spat up his cheesy gordita meat in horror, and immediately called his head chef to come up with a menu option that would counteract this terrible public relations fiasco.

Bloomberg theorizes that the Naked Chalupa – or the “‘Send Nudes’ Taco,” as we can only assume Generation Z has been calling it – is “an attempt to capitalize on record-high demand for chicken while still appealing to [Taco Bell’s] customers’ desire for over-the-top food combinations.” And frankly, this seems insulting. We here at the news editorial board don’t consider fried chicken and tacos to be an “over-the-top” combination. It makes perfect god damn sense.

No, dear reader, it is only in a world where we must be hyper-vigilant of our calorie intakes (lest we upset the balance of being totally inert and sedentary for the sake of a paycheck) that we would consider fried chicken and tacos to be “over the top.” In another society, this perfectly logical and delicious combination would be seen as a God-given right.

But in this context, it’s really just Taco Bell handing you a poison calorie bomb, isn’t it? Anyway, we digress.

Bloomberg continues

Americans are expected to eat about 91.7 pounds of chicken per person this year, the most on record, according to the National Chicken Council. That dwarfs demand for beef and pork.

….

“The thing about chicken is, it can take on a lot of different flavors,” [Taco Bell President Brian Niccol] said. “It hits the right chord of being known, but yet different.”

We here at the news editorial board don’t know about you, dear reader, but we typically buy more chicken than beef because cow-meat is what scientists refer to as “fuckin’ expensive,” while chicken tends to be what analysts call “still too much money, but generally the only thing I can afford right now.”

Anyway, we may or may not watch the developments of this Delicious Fried-Chicken Abomination of Taco Gluttony with interest and update you if and when it murders somebody in a drive-thru.

Until the next newsworthy event, this is the News Editorial Board – signing off.